


The Castle

by moonphase9



Series: The Powerpuff Horror Series [1]
Category: Powerpuff Girls
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Dark, F/M, First Crush, Gen, Gothic, Horror, Minor Romance, Pre-Relationship, Vampires, alternative universe, fairytale, folktale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 19:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16352780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonphase9/pseuds/moonphase9
Summary: The village in which Bubbles lives with her father is cursed. Winter will not end and the people are starving. Desperate, her father sends her away to work in The Castle; an insatiable monstrosity in which all the girls of the village seem to disapear. With two sisters missing and one dead mother, will Bubbles survive?





	The Castle

It was deep winter. The wolves could be heard calling out to the moon. They usually left the people of the village of Cachville alone, choosing to stay within the wilderness of the Little Carpathians mountain range. However, due to the long, harsh winter they were circling the village, stealing away and killing anyone foolish enough to step too far out of the man-made confines.

In the Utoni household there used to be three beautiful girls and their two darling parents. But since the Dark Times had arrived, along with permanent snow and cold, the household had shortened down to just two people. A place of humble beauty, a cottage surrounded by wild flowers and chirping birds and filled with the laughter of little girls, now was desolate and empty and silent. Like its neighbours, the cottage had fallen into disrepair. Holes gaped in the poorly thatched roof. The wood, no longer covered by ivy and scented flowers, had turned a deep black due to the heavy, wet weather. Crows hopped about the ground desperately hoping to awaken worms and to tempt them out of the ground.

Snow fell continuously. Beautiful, little white fairies against a backdrop of black sky, but it was deadly. Most of the village was dead or dying. Most of the people there were old.

Bubbles, one of the few youngsters left free, shivered on hearing the howling of the wolves before closing the wooden shutters and running up to the fire in their small one bedroom home. Her father sat in the only chair, situated in front of the fire. She curled up on his lap and looked up at his face. He was a young man, but aged before his time. The light shone flickering shadows upon his face, warping it, changing it, making it shift constantly so that it was unreadable. She looked away.

 _“Oh when will winter end?”_ she complained to herself before saying aloud, “papa, when the snow finally goes away, then my big sister will come back won’t she?”

“That was what we were promised,” he said flatly, his voice dry.

“Maybe then Buttercup will come back too?” she said hopefully.

Father said nothing. Both knew what he was thinking. That Buttercup was gone for good. That the wolves had taken her. That she was dead.

There was no talking for a little while, only the crackling of their weak fire, the only thing of value in their small huddle of a home.

At last father said, “there is no food left. We have finished are stores. The rations are depleted.” He sighed, squeezing his eyes shut and letting one last tear fall down his cheek, “we are going to die. Or at least, I am.”

“Papa no!” Bubbles turned in his lap so that she could hug him, “please don’t talk that way! We will work it out somehow.”

“You are fourteen years old, beautiful and wonderful. You should be courting handsome boys and running free in the fields of emerald grass under a sapphire sky. You should not be condemned to cold and misery and starvation. It isn’t right.” He paused, listening to his fair child weeping piteously, “I received a summons from Castle Čachtice early this morning...”

“From the Castle, where Blossom went to?”

“Yes, they are in need of more maids.”

“They’re always in need of more maids,” shuddered Bubbles.

“Pay no mind to the rumours and gossip,” he chastised, noticing her shaking, “there is no proof of such happenings. The Morbucks are our betters and key employers of our village. If they need more maids, well, I’d rather you in a handsome castle than starving here with me.”

“But you believe the gossip too,” she argued, “that’s why you tried to get Blossom back, and why you’ve waited so long before sending me to the castle. I know there have been many more requests for new girls to serve Lady Elizabeth Morbucks. Everyone knows.” She got off his lap and stared at him mournfully, “please do not send me there papa. I would never see you again, even if there is no evil in that castle, no one ever leaves it. We haven’t seen Blossom once since she went away.”

“I cannot help it,” he said, his voice still dry and blank, as if all his emotions had been used up, and empty well of a man, a shell of his former self, “you will definitely die out here with me. But you might survive in that castle. Perhaps if you are clever or get into the family’s good graces. And how could you not? You are beautiful and kind and good. No one could hate you. I have to trust that the rumours are false, and that you are stronger than you appear.”

She slid off his lap and fell to her knees, placing her head on his lap and crying. “Papa, please don’t! I’d rather die out here with you.”

“Well that’s not what I want,” he answered tiredly, “you will go, tonight. You will go tomorrow morning and I shall pray for you.”

“But you’ll be all alone!”

“I shall spend my last days hoping that you are safe and well. Do you hear that? The wolves are even closer. They can sense us all dying. They will...” he stopped himself from saying that they wanted to eat the corpse he would leave behind. His daughter was traumatised enough. He wanted to save her from what he could. “Don’t hate me,” he said instead, “I do this because I love you.”

“I know,” she sniffed, resigned, “I know papa.”

They spent the night as they always did, lying on the hearth in front of the fire. They slept together under one small blanket because it was too cold to sleep separately. Bubbles lay awake shivering. Lowly the sky outside transformed from its starless black to a hazy grey. The white light shone through the window. The wolves’ howls were replaced with coarse cawing of ravens and crows. She reluctantly pulled away from her warm father and re-lit the fire. It was so cold that she could see her own breath. She rubbed her skin, which was dry and cracked from the perpetual cold. How long had it been winter now? It felt like years. Ever since the Morbucks came, it had been nothing but winter.

When the fire was warm enough and her father began to stir she put on the metal kettle, the kettle filled with snow which she would boil for them to drink. They sipped their boiling water a few minutes later and ate the last bits of dry bread they had. Father gave her the biggest chunk saying she would need it for the journey. She nodded and accepted the gift, knowing it would make him happy, just a little, just as much happiness that his frozen, broken heart could muster.

Parting was a quiet, sombre affair. They hugged on the doorstep of the cottage for far too long. A few tears falling from her crystal blue eyes. The wind blew bitterly from the north, bellowing like a giant, unseen bully.

“Be gone now,” he said, “the castle calls you.”

“I shall return papa,” she said firmly, “I will come back for you. Please try to stay alive. Please try! You won’t have me holding you back, but you will have the hope of me finding you again someday.”

He gripped her hand tight, “I shall try,” he whispered at length before finally letting her go. He immediately missed his warmth, but fighting against the urge to go back to him, to run into his arms, she began to walk away. She didn’t look back; she couldn’t, she just couldn’t.

A few faces in the other cottages watched her as she left. Their faces were blank, their eyes hollow. They were starved and hopeless. She grit her jaw, too young to have given up the way they had.

In the distance Castle Čachtice stood overlooking the village like an ogre. It was enormous, so large that it used to block out the sun, casting the village always in its shadow. Whoever had made the castle had been cruel to place it there, as if to let the people know that they were never as important as the people living inside it. That the rich could even steal their sun if they wanted to.

Bubbles stomped through the snow, walking becoming harder the further away she drifted from the village. The snow reached her knees so that she had to wade through it, as if walking in water. Soon she was feeling almost hot from the excursion, her chest heaving and her heart beating fast. All the while the castle got closer.

She could see the ravens and crows flying about its torrents. The bricks were jet black and looked wet.

Bubbles leapt slightly when she heard a snarl. She turned and looked behind her. Three wolves stood on a hill above her, staring down. She frowned at them, not allowing herself to exert fear. The wolves tongues were hanging loose, but none of them looked hostile, so she continued to walk, all the time looking out for a stick or a rock so that she could use it as a weapon against them if she needed to.

They followed her all the way to the castle, but did not attack her at all. Perhaps she was too skinny to tempt them.

At last, as afternoon fell and the sky was already darkening, she arrived at Čachtice. The castle’s shadow stretched out along the hill that it stood upon. Looking behind her she saw the three wolves and beyond that she could see the small black squares that made up the homes of her little village.

_“Papa.”_

The wolves let out a whine. She focused on them only to see them pawing anxiously at the Castle’s shadow. It seemed they did not wish to cross it.

 _“That is a bad omen_ ,” she thought, gulping. Nonetheless, she walked straight up to the large oak doors. On them was a knocker which was shaped as a human skull. Rather tasteless and vulgar, but the Morbucks were a known violent, warrior family whose ancestors had been thieves and criminals and murderers.  There were rumours of them all being insane from generations of incest and rape.

Steeling herself, she banged the knocker and waited patiently for several minutes before the door was finally opened by a sinister woman with a pale complexion and long dark hair. She smiled down at Bubbles. “Well aren’t you a delicious little morsel,” she declared, Bubbles noting her unusually sharp teeth.

“I’ve come here about a job,” answered Bubbles staring up at the tall woman, “my father heard you need more maids here.”

“Come in, come in, you must be frozen.” Bubbles entered at the woman’s bequest. Inside the house was huge. The walls were a deep rich brown.  On them were large portraits of the Morbucks ancestors. They were usually on horses and wore armour. Many of them had fiery red hair, or deep black hair like the tall lady.  All of them had full red lips and a dark glint in their eye. They all stared down at her. The only light came from a chandelier, half the candles lit and flickering from a draft that was blowing through the building. Like her father’s face the night before, the light cast strange shadows across the walls that were in almost constant motion. Everything was strange and out of sorts.

“Who are you?” she breathed.

The lady smiled, “I am Seduca Morbucks. I am the aunt of the Lady of this house. I have come to stay.”

“I’m sorry, I did not know you was...I wouldn’t have spoken to you in such a casual way My Lady, had I known you were a Morbuck.”

“Quite alright. We do not have enough staff. But I’m sure you can help us now, can’t you?”

“Yes My Lady,” Bubbles gave a small curtsey.

Lady Seduca led Bubbles up a large and long staircase that wound its way up the castle. It led to a corridor which was almost completely black. Seduca took a candle and continued to lead the way. On the wall gargoyles stretched out their arms, their mouths frozen open, their eyes bulging. In the distance the wolves were singing their chorus again. Bubbles felt like crying then, but she didn’t.

At the end of the corridor was a red door. Lady Seduca knocked it thrice before opening it. As she did a cold wind with snow blew out from under it. Bubbles held in a small gasp. Inside the room the walls were pure black. There was a bed, also black with black, rich looking sheets. In the middle was a large mirror. It stood tall, the outside of it obsidian black, so black that Bubbles couldn’t work out what it was made from. In front of the mirror stood a pale-skinned girl with fiery red hair which fell in long curls down her back. Like Lady Seduca she was very tall and very slender. She wore a thin silk dress which was long but revealed most of her white back and arms. The window was open, allowing the howls of wolves and the wind and snow to pour in. However, she seemed quite unaffected by it all.

She turned and smiled at them, her black eyes lighting greedily when she looked down at Bubbles.

“And what do you have for me aunt? What gift is this?”

“A girl from the village,” answered Lady Seduca, “isn’t she pretty? Look at this hair, like the sun captured within it.”

Bubbles felt the long nails of Lady Seduca feeling through the hair and gently touching the scalp, trailing down the side of her neck and settling at its base.

“Very pretty,” hissed the red-head, “I am Elizabeth Morebucks: your superior, your duchess. You will work for me now. You will be mine.”

“Yes My Lady,” gulped Bubbles, not liking the situation at all.

Lady Seduca chucked darkly behind her, making her shiver.

“What is your name child?”

“Bubbles Utoni My Lady.”

Lady Elizabeth breathed in through her sharp nostrils, and for a moment looked to be in pure ecstasy before she opened her eyes and calmed herself again.

“Utoni?” she repeated, “that sounds familiar.”

“I have a sister, she is here. She came for work.”

The two women looked at one another, as if they were swapping a secret message.

“Well, maybe we shall find her at some point,” said Lady Elizabeth, “we sometimes lose track of all the girls’ names here. We have so many of you. So many, yet never enough. Aunty, would you be good enough to send Bubbles to her living quarters? You will start pleasing me tomorrow Bubbles.”

“Yes My lady,” she bopped a curtsey again before being swept out the room again, Elizabeth turning to admire herself in her mirror once more, the snow blowing around her.

 

 

II

Bubbles was led to the very top of the house into one of the attics.

“Here is where you will sleep.”

“Where are the other servants My Lady?” Bubbles looked up at Lady Seduca, who smirked.

“They are working downstairs. Don’t worry yourself, your Mistress is very kind. We want you to sleep and eat, ready for a day’s work tomorrow.” She leaned down and placed a kiss on Bubbble’s head. It was ice-cold and hurt.

“Ouch!” gasped the blonde, unable to hold it in.

But Seduca just smiled and pushed Bubbles into a room before walking away, closing the door behind her. The room was pure white, the exact opposite of Lady Elizabeth Morbucks. It was small, with a single bed with plain white sheets, the floor and walls were wooden and white-washed. Beside the bed was a small round table which had on it a bowl of broth and a chunk of bread. She ate it eagerly, not having eaten such good food in several months. The bread was soft and sweet, the broth full with animal fats and pieces of vegetables. Her stomach hummed in happiness as she tried to quench any guilt that her papa would be starving in his cold little cottage tonight. After licking up the last bits from her bowl and sucking the bits of bread on her fingers she realised something.

 _“Why was the food here waiting?”_ she wondered, _“how did they know I was coming?”_

Outside the wolves howled as Diana’s milky white orb peeked out of the clouds. Bubbles walked over to the window, pulling off her clothes and stripping into her underwear ready for bed. The moon shone onto the white snow, lighting it up. Beneath her she could imagine the wolves waiting outside. She could hear their yips and soft growls. She wished she could throw some meaty scraps for them out the window, but she hadn’t any.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered before straining her eyes to look into the distance. At the bottom of the hill was a patch of shadow, which she knew was where her village lay. How was papa doing? He would be all alone for the first time tonight. All alone under his blanket.

Bubbles wiped away a few tears before saying a quick pray to god to protect herself and her papa, before finally climbing into bed.

Beside her was a single candle. The light was low and most of the small room was in shadow. _“It won’t look so scary in the morning,”_ she thought. Nonetheless, even though she knew it was wasteful, she didn’t put out the candle. Instead she closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the bit of warmth it gave her.

She allowed her breaths to deepen slowly, willing herself to sleep. She was genuinely exhausted after her long journey. Then she heard the sound of the bedroom door knob being turned. She tensed and but kept her eyes shut. _“It might just be one of the servants,”_ she reasoned, _“coming to check on me.”_

The room became even colder. She couldn’t hear much but she sensed that something was in her room. Her heart began to pound against her chest and she forced herself to continue breathing somewhat normally, beads of sweat began to appear on her brow.

She remained like this for some time until...

A heavy thing, it felt like her hand, placed itself on her knee above the blanket. Bubbles gulped. The hand brushed its way up her leg and onto her body, squeezing her small belly slightly and grazing over her chest.  She then felt a hand upon her neck. The hand was ice cold and had long nails on it.

Bubbles eyes snapped open and a pathetic whimper came out of her mouth.

Nothing was there.

She sat up, heart beating fast and furiously her breathing now heavy. The room was pitch black. The candle had gone out. The moon was hidden behind the clouds once more, for there wasn’t even any light from the window.

She blinked as her eyes began to adjust to the darkness, picking out the shadows and variations of black.

The room was cold and felt claustrophobic.

She scanned it, her eyes focusing on one corner of the room. It looked like something was there. Something tall. Something standing still and quiet in the corner, watching her. She touched her neck out of reflex, was it Lady Seduca?

Bubbles stared, trying to work it out. Was it just her imagination? Or was there something there? If so what was it? It was completely immobile and too thin and too tall to be a person.

She wanted to see if she could light her candle again, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to because there were no matches, plus she did not want to look away from the thing.

She became aware of noise. Outside the wind was blowing hard, breezing against her window. It was the kind of wind the witches used to like flying in, or so they said. The wolves were no longer howling.

There was a slight creaking sound outside in the castle somewhere. A door opening slowly perhaps? Maybe someone would be coming down the hallway soon, someone like another nice maid? Maybe her sister?

Bubbles let out a slight yelp of fear. The thing had moved, or rather, the top of it had. It had moved in the direction of the creaking sound, as if it was listening.

She gripped her bed sheets, her breathing picking up again. In the shadow, it moved slightly again into its old position. Its position of looking at her.

There was something shiny in the shadow, shiny and almond shaped.

An eye.

She was seeing an eye.

An eye looking right at her.

Tears began to fall from her own eyes. She wanted to scream, to call out for help, but she couldn’t.

Outside, a litany of wolves began to cry out again, singing the song of the damned.

It was too loud, too much.

The shadow looked like it was getting bigger until Bubbles realised it wasn’t getting bigger, it was coming closer to her. It was drifting slowly towards her, as if on wheels, its eye which she could clearly see focused on her the entire time.

She began to shake her head in fear and disbelief. Her head ached and her jaws were clenched together. She wanted to run to the door, but she couldn’t move, her body was frozen to the spot and when she tried to move it, it was as if her body had become too heavy.

_“This is a nightmare, this is a nightmare, this is a nightmare...”_

But she wasn’t waking up.

The thing was at the foot of her bed now. She could make out its long, scrawny arms ending with long, bony fingers and sharp, curling claws. The moonlight shone through the window again. It cast a dull, white hazy glow behind the black figure. The things shadow stretched out on the bed and Bubbles heard a blood-curdling scream.

It was her own.

Her own scream, tearing her throat for it came out in such force. The creature opened its mouth, sharp fangs glinting in the moonlight before it bore down on the small girl, muffling her terrified scream.

Bubbles felt the strong, cold teeth bury into her neck. She felt an overly large and wet mouth sucking at her, a tongue, rough like a cats, brushing against her skin.

She pushed at the being, which was heavy and cold, like a rock. It wouldn’t move. She wept; she could feel it sucking at her blood.

Slowly the world began to darken as she became increasingly woozy until, at long last, blessed unconsciousness took her.

 

III

Bubbles opened her large blue eyes.

The light from outside had lit up her white room. She looked like she was in heaven; pure and white and clean and simple.

She groaned.

Her head hurt badly and her neck, her neck felt so sore!

It took her a while to move for her body felt so heavy, but eventually she could lift her hand and put it to her neck. A shiver ran through her when she felt the puncture marks, two neat ones a short distance away from each other.

Had last night been real then?

Was there really evil in this place?

Why hadn’t she been killed?

She looked at her arm and saw bruises decorating it. She had been hurt rather badly. She lifted herself out of bed and looked down at herself. There was some blood on her neck and vest, but not much. On her left knee was a burn mark, though she couldn’t work out how she’d gotten it.  Her neck was bruised and swollen also.

 _“Should I run away?”_ she wondered, _“run back home? But what if that monster comes after me? It would kill papa. And what of Blossom? She came here many months ago. If I could find her, maybe we can find a way to escape together.”_

There was a polite knock on the door. Bubbles called for them to come in.

A woman marched in briskly. She too was deathly pale, long blonde hair pulled back into a severe bun.

“Still lounging about?” she snarled, “and on your first day too? It’s disgusting.  Luckily for you the Mistress has decided to be lenient on you.” She appraised Bubbles silently before sneering, “I can’t say I’m surprised. She always loves the pretty ones. But you won’t stay pretty for long.”

She handed Bubbles a pile of folded clothes. “These are to be your new uniform.  Wash your face then get dressed, I want you in the kitchen, located in the on the far end of this hall, very quickly. You are to put your hair up; we don’t want it hanging out. Understand?”

“Yes Madam.”

“Good.” The woman went to leave but paused to add, “and my name is Ms. Scara to you. Remember the name. I am your superior and in charge of all the staff here.”

Bubbles washed her face with some water left by Ms. Scara in a basin. It was icy cold and flushed her skin to a pale pink before drying it out. Her dress was a pale blue, with a high collar and reaching her knees. Her cheap shoes and tights were black and warm.

She wandered out of the room and down the hall which was dark despite it only being morning. As she walked she tied her hair into two pig-tails and looked at her surroundings. The walls were covered in scary faces. They looked like gargoyles or demons. They looked down at her, pulling faces and waggling their tongues. It was disturbing.

 _“This house is strange and frightening. I want to go home. Perhaps, when I find Blossom, I will convince her to leave this place. Even with food I don’t think I can stand to live here indefinitely.”_ She wondered how Blossom had managed to stay so long. She had only stayed one night and her nerves felt fried.

At the end of the hall was a white door. It was at odds with the rest of the hallway which was mostly black with dark greens, grey and scarlet interlaced with the images of monsters and grotesques.

Bubbles put her ear to the door. She expected to hear the hustle and bustle of many servants getting ready, but there was nothing.

She opened the door and walked inside. The room was mostly dark brown, made out of oak wood. There was a long table in the middle of the room.  No places were set out apart from one.

 _“Maybe it is very late and everyone else is working,”_ she thought, before sitting down and looking at her plate. It was some simple gruel, made mostly from animal fat and onion, and a crust of bread. She ate it all gratefully and once again tried to push guilty thoughts of her father away.

Afterwards she walked around the kitchen. There were eighteen seats on the table, so she reasoned there must be at least eighteen staff members, though such a large castle would surely need more?

There was a large cooker, but it was very clean, almost as though it had not been used.

 _“It’s almost as if I’m all alone here,”_ she thought before noticing a note left on the side.

_‘Blonde Girl,_

_Go collect a mop and bucket in the corner. Then go up into the West wing (that’s on the right, as I can only guess that you are a fool and won’t know otherwise) on the second floor and begin to mop out the old bedrooms (look out for the blue door). You are also to polish everything and to sweep the carpet. Get all of the rooms done. I will inspect your work in three hours. Failure will be met with punishment._

_~Ms. Scara.’_

Bubbles had to assume that the note was left for her. She looked at the corner and did indeed spot a bucket and mop. The bucket was filled with grey cold water, so she filled it afresh from the tap before going back out into the hallway.

She walked down the vast staircase she had been led up the day before. The whole house was silent. It was bizarre. Where was everyone? Lady Elizabeth, Lady Seduca, the servants? Where were they?

The bucket was too heavy so she carried it down the stairs and then went back up for the mop. She then stumbled through the second floor, making sure she turned right, trying not to spill water on the carpet.

 _“’Look out for the blue door,’”_ she repeated in her mind, _“but what did she mean? Am I not to go in the blue one, or is that one I should definitely walk into?”_

The second floor looked as if it weren’t used often. The hallway was slightly brighter, for down here there were windows, but then were covered by heavy curtains. All around cobwebs covered the walls, chandeliers and ceiling and the floor was thick with dust, so much in fact that when she walked she left a trial of footsteps.

_“It will take a long time to clean all of this.”_

Bubbles came to the first door. She opened it and went inside, immediately coughing from all the dust that billowed out of it.

The room was a dark blue and was circular. The curtains were black and shut. She walked across the floor, which was littered with clothes and toys, before opening the curtains with relish. The pure light of innocent day burst through and eradicated the shadows in what must have been the first time in years. She looked around. “ _This room must have belonged to a child,”_ she saw three beds in the centre of the room and amended her thought to, _“three children. Little boys,”_ she added, seeing toy soldiers and chariots on the floor.

Going by the amount of mess made they must have been quite rambunctious. She smiled in spite of herself. She began to pick up all the toys, polishing them dutifully on her white apron before putting them away. There was a toy box which was flung up-side down. She righted it and placed them in there. When it was too full she noticed a number of shelves were loose, so she fixed them onto the wall and put the things up there neatly.

She realised with some amusement that there was three of everything, as if the boys did not know how to share, and that most of the toys were colour co-ordinated red, blue, and green. Even the beds had these three colours.

She wondered why the Blue Boy managed to have the bedroom walls painted his favourite colour.  Perhaps he had been the favourite of his parents.

The floor was wooden and painted white with a black spiral twisting round into the centre. She moped following its pattern and wondering about the children and the house. Who had they been? She didn’t remember anything about three little boys once living here. She wanted to ask her papa, but he was far from her now. And her sister was still nowhere to be seen.

 _“I’ll be brave next time_ ,” she swore, _“I won’t be intimidated by Ms. Scara and I will ask her about Blossom instead. Maybe even Buttercup, who knows, she may have come here.”_

The room was nearly completed. She opened up a window to help get the dust out, despite the cold. The land was pure white, the sky a thick grey. Snow was falling again. She thought of Lady Elizabeth with her long red hair and talon-like nails. _“I wonder if she has her bedroom window open to let in the snowflakes. I wonder if she is still looking into that mirror.”_ Bubbles did think there was a sort of dark, elegant beauty to Elizabeth Morbucks, but she decided that the long red hair of her sister more beautiful and natural.

Bubbles missed her sisters terribly.

She moved away from the window, she had learnt long ago that it was pointless mourning over her family, and began to tidy the beds. As she fluffed one of the pillows, a rather large sheet of paper fell out from underneath it.

The sheet of paper had a picture on it, a ripped oil painting of three little boys. They were wearing their signature colours and glaring up at Bubbles. They had the same intensity she saw in the other family pictures around the castle. They must have been relatives of Lady Elizabeth and Seduca; they must have been Morbucks themselves.

They didn’t look like sweet-natured boys, but there was something about them that drew her to them. A sort of innocence that still existed in them. She focused in. They were cute, that much was true. Little round creatures, their hair a little too long, well-dressed and visibly spoiled.  She stroked the blond one’s face. They must have been around eight or nine years old when the picture was painted. It also looked like they were triplets, like her and her sisters.

 _“Strange, they look like us a little,”_ she thought.

“What are you doing in here!” bellowed a voice so loudly that Bubbles shrieked and dropped the picture.

Ms. Scara was standing in the doorway, her hair was free and almost white, and her facial expression was almost wild and evil.

“I-I clean, just like you said!” cried Bubbles.

Ms. Scara grinned and licked her lips before crooning, “I told you not to come here. You disobeyed, now...now you shall be punished!”

“No, please, I’m sorry! Ow!”

Ms.Scara had grabbed Bubbles by one of her pig tails and was now dragging her down all the stairs into a basement. Bubbles did not see but as Ms. Scara slammed the door of the boys’ room, all the dust was removed, revealing the door as being blue.

“I knew you would fail!” she trilled, “and now, and now you will be punished! Just like the others!”

The further down they went, the darker it became until when they reached the door of the basement, which was black with a red up-side down crucifix on it, it may as well have been midnight.

Ms. Scara took one of the keys from her heavy chain wrapped around her waist and opened the door, throwing Bubbles inside. Bubbles fell down a few concrete stairs which were directly behind the door. As she slowly lifted herself, whimpering, she heard the groans of people in pain and agony.

Bubbles began to realise where all the other servants were.

All along the basement walls were cages, most of them very small, almost like ones you would keep and animal in. But instead of a small animal, most had a human cramped up inside. On some of the walls people were hanging from chains, their legs left to dangle causing untold pain in their arms. Everyone was naked and bloodied and bruised. The basement was a dungeon. A torture dungeon.

Bubbles began to cry in terror and horror. This was a thousand times worse than she could ever imagine. Ms. Scara dragged her arm and threw Bubbles to the ground before she began to rip at the throat of her dress, clawing at the collar and tearing it.

“I knew they had a taste of you!” she cried in exaltation seeing the puncture marks on Bubbles’ neck, “what a dirty little whore you are!” she laughed.

Bubbles wept, she didn’t understand.

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” she cried, “please, don’t hurt me!”

But Ms. Scara did not care. Being a sadist, Bubbles’ tears only heightened her own amusement. Pulling the girl to her feet, Ms. Scara flung her into a cell where a few other bodies were huddled in the corner.

“Just wait until tonight!” she hissed, “in a few hours they shall be hungry and in need of good sport, and you my girl shall be the blood feast for tonight!”

 IV

 

 _‘No, no, no,_ ’ Bubbles thoughts screamed, _‘this cannot be happening! This cannot be real!’_

She called out to the others also in cages, but they wouldn’t meet her eyes and some were in so much pain they couldn’t speak. Many were disfigured, pieces of their bodies had been hacked away and their wounds were left to fester.

“Have anyone of you seen my sister?” she called out, her voice sounding high and frightened to her own ears, “please, anyone? Please speak to me!”

It was then that one man hanging from a wall by his arms raised his head and said in a rasping, very voice, “stupid girl, can’t you see...don’t you see?”

“See what?” she asked, but he didn’t answer. Instead his head flopped back down to his chest as if he were too damaged and exhausted to go on. So Bubbles began to look around the basement. Maybe her sister was here somewhere, too hurt to answer her?  But, on her inspection she suddenly realised something.

“There are no women here,” she muttered before repeating more loudly, “there are no women! What happens to the women? What happens?”

“They take them out,” giggled a voice. Bubbles saw that it was a thin man, with long greasy brown hair, body dirty and naked in a small cage on the other side of the basement. “They take the girls, the pretty, pretty girls, outside. They take them for the Blood Feast. We sate their appetites for a little while, but it’s you that they want. Pretty little girls!”

“Why do they just want girls?” she asked as he giggled strangely, feeling the blood draining from her face. “What is the Blood Feast?”

But he was no longer answering her; he just sat gabbling to himself and rocking.

 _“You’ll find out tonight_ ,” a voice deep inside her head that she did not recognise as her own whispered, _“you’ll find out tonight...”_

However, she was not so easily defeated. Ignoring the sounds of agony around her, Bubbles took out a small hairpin from her hair and tried to unlock her cage, but the lock was too rusted and she couldn’t unpick it. She worked at in, scratching at the metal when her hairpin finally snapped in half until her fingers began to bleed, but to no avail. It was then that she bowed her head and begun to cry.

What could she do?

How could she escape her terrible fate?

All around her she could hear the groans and moans of the dying. She put her head between her legs, covered her ears and tried to block it out, hiding into herself.

Had this happened to Blossom? Had Blossom, her pure, brave, innocent, beautiful sister, been taken to this terrible room and subjected to these horrors? Had she prayed for death? Had she wished for someone to rescue her, all whilst Bubbles and her father had sat at home, oblivious to her suffering? The Morbucks, had they smiled kindly at Bubbles, all the time knowing what heinous acts they were going to inflict on her, on what they had to her sister?

Bubbles grit her teeth, fury mixing in with her terror. She began to rock, her body already freezing up and cramping from the small cage she was in and from the cold. She pulled her hair, _‘I mustn’t panic,’_ she thought, whilst simultaneously feeling it welling up in her chest causing her breath and heart beat to speed up,     _‘do not panic...I must stay calm...there must be a way out of this!’_

“I can’t take it anymore!” someone shrieked suddenly, making Bubbles jump and shaking her out of her attempts of self-calming. It was a man in a cage who had cried out, his hair was a dirty blond and he was also naked, bite marks evident all over his body, “I can’t take it!” His blue eyes were bulging as he began to scream, high pitched and short. It was the screams of someone whose sanity had finally snapped.  He grabbed the bars of his tiny cage and began to shake it, screaming incessantly.

This seemed to set the others off, another man, one near Bubbles began to shake profusely, spittle and froth pouring out of his mouth. His eyes rolled backwards as he fell on to his side.

Bubbles put her fist in her mouth and bit down hard, terrified by what she was seeing. It was too much...it was too much for her!

Some of the other prisoners began to hide away, looking towards the door. Some, like the man who was hanging from the wall did not react at all. Most began to scream as well, as if they no longer cared about anything, because pain was all they knew and understood now.

Ms. Scara burst into the room, “silence! Silence you beasts!” She marched over to where the blond man was screaming and ripped open his cage.

Though she was a woman, he was so small and thin that she easily over-powered him. She threw him to the ground and the man began to laugh hysterically.

She grinned at his madness and stared lasciviously without shame at his naked body. She was enjoying his pain, his shame, his humiliation, his complete mental break-down.

Bubbles shut her eyes. She couldn’t stand to watch such perverted evil.

Suddenly, everything went quiet.

Bubbles frowned.

The screams of the others, of the blond man, of the man in the cage near hers having a fit. It all stopped.

 _‘Open your eyes,’_ whispered the mental voice that was not hers, it sniggered making her shudder with discomfort, like when someone whispering too closely to your ear, _‘open your eyes.’_

She complied, if only to stop the voice, which felt oily and filthy in her mind. It didn’t belong inside her, yet somehow it was worming it’s way though her thoughts and _speaking_ to her. She could see into the cage of the frothing man. He was frozen in the spot, his back arched in an awkward position. His mouth had spit all around it, bubbling and white.

His eyes were staring right into her.

His empty, dead eyes.

He was dead.

He had died.

He had died looking at her.

Bubbles whimpered and pushed her back against the further side of her cage. He didn’t want to be near this dead mad-man, it scared her.

A dark chuckle caused her to tear her frightened eyes from the man and instead on to Ms Scara.

She didn’t even look human anymore, her white-blonde hair was sticking out in strange angles as if electric ran through each strand and her skin was too white. Her eyes were pointed at the corners, and maniacal glint in them. She looked horrible.

“You should see this, get a clue for what will happen to you later, pretty one,” she grinned widely, too widely for any human, and Bubbles saw that her canines were overly elongated. “See what came of your red-headed sister.”

She opened her mouth widely, reminding Bubbles of a snake, and bit at the man’s throat, him screaming in pain before blood gushed out of his mouth in thick torrent.

Bubbles screamed and covered her mouth as Ms. Scara ripped out the poor man’s throat and swallowed it whole, crunching at it and licking the blood from of her lips.

She laughed gutturally as the man slowly died beneath her, his mouth open in a permanent scream. She sat upon his waist and began to lap up all the blood that pouring on to the floor and down his abused body.

Bubbles was then horribly sick, vomiting on her own clothes and onto the floor. She returned to her old position, rocking with her head between her knees and her arms covering her ears.

 _“Please God,”_ she prayed, “ _please save me! Please...please...please...!”_

“There’s no point praying to your god,” she heard Ms. Scara sneering, “he isn’t here. No one can save you from us. We are old. We are legion. We are the creatures of Satan. And we’re going to eat you up little one, we’re going to eat you up!”

 

The days are short in North Eastern Europe, especially in the winter. The pale sun that had comforted our young, innocent heroine hid away behind the clouds and soon vanished as it dipped below the horizon. The young wolf-pack of the Little Carthapians watched it leave and howled in misery of its loss. The shadows reclaimed their rulership of the cold and desolate land.

Inside Castle Čachtice Bubbles was taken out of her cage by Ms. Scara.

“Take off your clothes,” ordered the witch.

Bubbles stood still for a moment, her body stiff and cold and her mind telling her not to do as she was told. But Ms. Scara frightened her so much that she ended up complying.

She stripped into her underwear.

Ms. Scara smirked nastily and briefly before returning to her callous scowl, “take off everything you fool. You’re a sacrifice. You’re dinner. You are not in need of clothes. Or dignity.”

Bubbles bottom lip shook and her face blazed and she took off the last vestiges of clothing.

Ms. Scara then tied a blind fold around the girl.

“Consider yourself lucky,” she whispered, and Bubbles could hear the grin on her lips, “your sister had a blind fold of thorns around her eyes. Such tasty blood was wasted, by dripping on to the floor. It’s the only reason you are lucky enough to keep your sight.”

Bubbles began to sob then, the thin walls of stoic breaking down. Her sister had suffered and died horribly at the hands of these beasts. It was more than she could bear. Guilt and fear and horror forced tears from a girl who thought she couldn’t possibly cry any more.

Ms. Scara laughed at her sobs, but silently led her out of the basement and away from the sounds of groaning victims and up through the house. The main door was opened and Bubbles was pushed through it. Now she could feel the cold snow under her feet and wind howling in the air, she had been led outside into the bleak winter wilderness.

“I would run if I was you,” Ms. Scara rubbed her cold hands down Bubbles slight shoulders and bought her mouth and sharp teeth close the Bubble’s ear, “run as fast as you can.”

As soon as she released Bubbles shoulders the girl fled, ripping off her blind fold. _‘Perhaps I shall make it to the village,’_ she hoped desperately even though the village was a day’s walk from the castle. She would have to survive the entire night naked and in the snow.

She looked back to the castle, a sight causing her to stop dead in her tracks. At the top of one of the torrents she could see a light was on. She stared for a moment before realising that Lady Elizabeth Morbucks was standing at the window looking down at her. The red-head grinned, her eyes were black but the surrounding part that should have been white was instead a deep red. Her stare was fixated on Bubbles, like that of a cat staring at a small bird.

Bubbles’ mouth opened wide.

Elizabeth waved, moving her arm slowly.

Bubbles let out a horrific, throat-tearing scream.

It was in that moment that Bubbles completely lost her mind. She turned and began to run, not really paying any attention to where she was heading. She just knew that she needed to get away. She didn’t know what the Morbucks were, but whatever they were they were not human, they were evil things, evil things that pretended to be beautiful but they weren’t they were malicious, blood-thirsty psychopaths.

As she ran images flashed through her mind, of Ms. Scara and her white hair that made her look like a demonic witch, of the three little boys, of Elizabeth Morbucks standing in front of the mirror surrounded by snow, of the long nails of Seduca trailing down her own pale flesh, of the Thing in the corner...

It was too dark to see, too dark to reason.

Bubbles heard the wolves beginning to howl.

 _‘If I should die,’_ she thought, _‘please let it be by their jaws, the wolves have more mercy than those wicked creatures!’_

A sick, oily laughter resounded in her mind.

 _‘You’re going to die,’_ it whispered between dark chuckles, _‘you’re gonna die all alone. We will feast on you. Lick up all your blood, steal away your life force...oh how we shall be full on pleasure and exaltation at your suffering! Your misery and your body will sustain us!’_

“Stop!” Bubbles screamed, covering her ears and falling to the ground, “no! No! Stop!”

_‘That’s right, lie down, leave yourself open for us!’_

“Oh God!” Bubbles gripped at her hair willing the voice away. She opened her tear stained eyes, “Oh please, please let this end...”

She could see a little better now for her eyes had adjusted. She turned to look at the castle, which was now further away.

Three heavy shadow flew out of the top window where Elizabeth had been and began to fly down to earth before swerving towards her direction.

Using this fear she forced herself back up and began to run again.

There was no one else for miles, no people for miles!

She suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. ‘ _There’s no point heading for the village,’_ she realised, her thoughts clearing of her temporary madness for a moment, _‘I’ll never make it, but there is somewhere else I can go.’_

The wolves’ howls lit up the atmosphere. The wind was blowing strong through the trees, making them shriek, but she could clearly hear the wolves over it. She began to follow their howls.

This led her into the forest of dead black trees.

She ran quickly, eager to reach the pack as soon as she could. Her body was in absolute pain from the cold but with the pressure of fear she could ignore it.

Then she heard it. A woman’s chuckle right next to her ear.

Bubbles yelped a leapt away from it, the jump causing her to stumble and fall into the snow again. She flailed a little before getting back on to her feet.

In front of her was a Being wearing a red, hooded cape. Bubbles shivered, but not from the cold.

The howling had stopped.

The figure lifted a white hand and pulled off the hood. It was Lady Seduca. Her eyes were red and black, like Elizabeth Morbucks, and her hair moved unnaturally, as if it were a sea of snakes.

Seduca grinned madly revealing her razor-sharp teeth.

Bubbles looked around on the floor for something she could use as a weapon but there was nothing.

“You can’t defeat me,” laughed Seduca, her voice sounding strange and inhuman, as if she had many people speaking inside her, “even if you could find something, you cannot beat me. I have a thousand souls in this body. The blood of a million strong, feisty little girls, just like you. They sustain me, they keep me strong.

“I’m gonna eat you up,” she continued, stepping towards Bubbles, rubbing her hands over her own body, “I’m gonna drain you of your life. Oh God...Oh God, Bubbles you lucky girl, you’ll be part of me.” She licked her lips, her tongue too red and too long.

With unnatural speed, not unlike a spider, she suddenly sped towards Bubbles, grabbing her throat and throwing her to the ground before sitting on top of her in similar fashion to what Ms. Scara had done to the poor blond man from the basement.

Seduca hissed like a snake, writhing slightly on the poor girl before lifting one of Bubbles arms and biting it viciously. Bubbles cried out as Seduca began to suck, only stopping now and then to laugh breathlessly.

“I should save you for Elizabeth,” she said, “but why should that little brat get all the fun? All she cares about is bathing in blood for her stupid vanity. A waste in my opinion.”

She leaned over Bubbles and began to scratch her long nails over the girl’s body, making her bleed all over, tiny river of blood erupting over her shoulders, face and chest. Bubbles screamed in pain, trying to push the vampire off her, but it was too heavy and too strong.

Seduca laughed at her screams of pain when suddenly a large animal came charging from the shadows and pounced on Seduca, knocking her off Bubbles and making her scream hysterically in rage. Bubbles didn’t wait to see what it was but instead continued to run. Another howl tore into the sky over Seduca’s increasingly panicked screams, a howl from behind her.

Bubbles turned to see a large wolf staring at her. Its eyes were sharp and red. Blood stained its snout. It carried Seduca’s head in its jaws by her hair. The girl stared at it for a moment. Seduca eyes were open but rolled back, her mouth was open as if in surprise more than horror.

“You killed the monster,” said Bubbles faintly. The wolf dropped the head and let its tongue loll out of its mouth as it panted. She stroked its snout, knowing not to be afraid of it.

Two other large wolves appeared either side of it both watching Bubbles.

“I know you,” Bubbles sighed, “you-you were the ones that followed me here. You couldn’t step into the Castle’s shadow.”

One of the wolves, one with pale blue eyes, stepped forward and licked her face gently. It was then that she realised that, for now, she was safe.

V

Bubbles awoke shivering profusely. A long wet tongue licked her back making her squeal and sit up quickly. She was outside in the snow, sitting in a conclave of some ever-greens which loomed over her. She had spent the night sleeping amongst the wolves, resting one of them so that she wasn’t on the snow directly, and having the other two either side of her. Now, in the cold day there was only one, a pale blue eyed wolf. It sat looking at her, its tongue hanging out. It looked a little bit stupid and she couldn’t help giggling slightly at it before brushing its snout. The wolf was amazingly large, almost as large as a man.

“Where are your brothers?” she murmured.

Just then she heard the sound of feet, she turned to see another wolf, one with black fur and green eyes that looked like they belonged to a cat more than a wolf. Beside him was...

Bubbles stared unable to believe her eyes...

Besides the wolf was her sister Buttercup!

Buttercup looked as stunned as Bubbles. She was wearing thick furs and on her back were arrows in a pouch. Around her waist was a short sword. She looked like a boy and a hunter.

“B-Bubbles!” she spluttered, “why are you here? Why are you naked?!”

Bubbles suddenly blushed and covered herself with her arms. “I...well...I was in the Castle Catiche...”

Buttercup’s expression suddenly darkened, “say no more. Get on him,” she indicated to the pale wolf, “and I shall take you to where I have been staying.”

Bubbles did as she was told, but on top the wolf called, “but shouldn’t we go to papa? He’s all alone in the village.”

“He is safer there. I have stayed out here because I found out what those...those monsters are! If I returned home, or if you do now, they will hunt you down and kill everyone in sight. They have the scent of your blood now, they won’t let you go.”

Bubble’s head burned with the amount of questions she felt whizzing around her skull. She was also horribly cold and could feel illness coming upon her.

The strange troupe went deep up one of the Little Carthapians Hills. This particular one was full of ever greens which scented the area strongly.

Eventually they came to a small cave which was surrounded by strange markings carved into the stone.

“These runes keep out the vampires,” explained Buttercup.

“Vampires? Is that what they are?”

“Yes. They are the un-dead. Abominations in the sight of god that prey on human flesh, they find pleasure in the misery and suffering of others and rely on blood of living humans to keep their own demonic vitality sustained. The precious Princess up in that castle particularly thirsts for pretty young women.”

They walked into the dark cave. All over the walls were chalk pictures of humans fighting what looked like flying humanoid monsters, and more strange runes.

Deeper in a warm glow of a red-hot fire lit up the dingy surroundings. There were various furs and meats on the ground packed neatly. Bubbles climbed off the wolf and gratefully huddled up in a warm fur blanket. She sat by the fire and felt her skin tingling with the sensation of warmth and long last. Buttercup slid thick fur boots on her feet which looked like they were suffering from acute frost bite. She clenched her teeth, wondering if Bubbles would end up having to have her feet removed but said nothing.

“You’ve been here all this time?” said Bubbles after several minutes of silence. She couldn’t imagine sleeping in such a scary place, especially knowing what was living at the bottom of the hills.

“Yes.”

“Do the...the _vampires_ know you are living in here?”

“Yes. At night they stand outside the cave and talk to me.” Buttercup harrumphed, “it’s very irritating.”

Bubbles watched her with wide eyes. “How do you cope with that? I’d go out of my mind!”

“That’s what they want, they want me to go insane with fear, but I won’t let them do that to me.” She sighed and sat next to Bubbles. The wolves lay on the floor in the corners, watching the flames. “They sometimes bring the poor souls from their castle basement to me. They kill them outside the cave. They put the people close enough so there’s a chance I could save them, but I know the Vamps are too fast for me. It’s horrible.”

“One of the wolves killed a vampire last night. Seduca. It ripped her head off,” Bubbles felt her voice waver a little. The whole night had been highly unnerving and seeing the head of Seduca hanging from that wolf’s mouth had been the stuff of nightmares.

“What, one of these wolves?”

“No, the third one.”

Buttercup gave Bubbles a strange look, “what third wolf? This one,” she gestured to the blue eyed wolf, “only appeared recently. You mean there’s three?”

“Well I’ve always seen three. The last one is the biggest, his eyes are red. He was the one who killed Seduca.”

“If I had known the wolves could kill the vampires I would have used them long ago!”

“When did you meet the wolves?” Bubbles shifted, “how did you find out about...about the Morbucks?”

Buttercup stared into the fire for some time and Bubbles, starting to notice that she could feel her extremities again, let her stew in the dark halls of her mind until she was ready to speak. At long last she did.

“As you know I was never that happy at home, especially when mama...when mama passed away. I know she is in heaven and the Lord wanted her, but I wanted her too. She understood me. She knew that I was never the kind of girl who wanted to flirt with boys and have my first bairn at fifteen. She knew that I wanted a different life. I wanted to see the world, I wanted to earn my own money and become something more than a mother and a wife. When mama died I no longer wanted to live at home, I hated it there. Especially with papa so forlorn and the house falling into misery and disrepair. I wanted to leave.

“I was happy when Castle Čachtice announced for new maids from the village. I wanted to go but instead papa sent Blossom because she was more mature. I was so angry.

 “Anyway, after a month Blossom sent me a letter saying that she was unhappy at Castle Čachtice, that there was something terribly wrong with the place. She told me that members of staff were vanishing and that she was concerned about the Morbucks, who acted strangely. She said things were happening at night and that she even heard a few screams now and then.

“I was jealous and bitter. I thought that she had the opportunity to leave home and make her own way and yet in the letter she was complaining. She said she hadn’t written to papa because she didn’t want him to worry and that she didn’t want to bother you, but she knew I was made of sterner stuff and therefore she could confide in me.” Buttercup took in a deep breath, “I should have told someone she was worried. I should have told her to come home at once. But I didn’t. I was jealous and angry and so instead I kept knowledge the letter to myself. I never told anyone her concerns. I never wrote her back. The actual letter itself I burned in the fire.” Buttercup bit her lip and a few tears fell from her eyes. Bubbles cried silently, not realising she had even begun.

“Months went by and she never wrote back ever again. That was the last we heard of her...that I heard of her. I began to feel more worried, but also more ashamed of keeping the letter a secret. I didn’t know what to do. I just kept telling myself that she would be alright. That everything would work out. Even as papa became worse in his depression and even you became increasingly subdued. I knew you missed her. I had...I felt I had stolen her from you somehow.

“One night, when it had been snowing for three months straight and we were all becoming concerned that winter still hadn’t ended, I remember I was peeking out of the window. I could hear wolves crying out and it...it worried me...wolves never came so close to the village before. I looked out of the window. Everything was well lit because the moon and the stars were out in all their full glory.

“I looked at the white untouched snow and then a saw someone. I looked hard and saw Blossom. At first I thought, ‘why is she back and why is she here now, in the middle of the night?’

“Then I realised something else, there were no tracks around her. No tracks at all. How had she gotten to the village? It was too strange. I shook my head, wondering if maybe I was dreaming or if I was seeing things, but she was still there. She looked pale, sickly even, but very beautiful, more beautiful than I remembered. And then she gave me this really sad smile and waved at me.” Buttercup cried for a while then, in between sobs continuing her tale, “I suddenly felt so scared and confused. I ran from the room and out into the snow. But she was gone. She was just gone. All that was there was our steadily crumbling village, the snow, the sky and the howls of wolves.

“It bothered me. It bothered me a lot. So I ran further through the village until I reached the outskirts. I was certain I had seen her. I ran to the outskirts, and, and I looked up the hill and saw the Castle in the distance. I hated it, then and there, I decided that I hated it. Something had or was happening to Blossom. It was my fault because she had told me months beforehand and I had ignored her. I decided to go save her and bring her home, to make us the family we once were, even without mama.

“I didn’t intend to be gone for long. Maybe just the night. But you know what I am like, I just didn’t put any real thought into it. I just chased into the night, deciding that any wolf that wanted to attack me could feel my fists.”

“Oh Buttercup,” sighed Bubbles.

“I know, I’m stupid. I walked for hours. As I got closer to the castle I saw something flying out from the towers. They looked like shadows. I ducked down and watched them flying into the Little Carthapians. I followed them. I ran into the woods. They went to where all those dead black trees stand sticking out of the earth. I hid behind a tree and saw a number of people. All women.  They were wearing white paint on their already pale faces. Two of them were beating on this drum. They walked in a line, single-file. In the middle was a woman. She was naked. Her face had a bag over it. Her arms were tied behind her back and there was a long rope from her hands to one of the female captors. There was another rope around her neck, and that was being carried by a captor in front.” Buttercup shuddered and Bubbles felt herself rooted to the spot.

“It was the beating of the drum, the consistent beating, I shall never forget it, and the tied up girl that made me scared. I was...I was so scared Bubbles. God I was so scared. My whole body was shaking and my jaw was clenched together so hard my teeth ached in agony. The party went into an opening and I heard this high pitched whining. It was the girl whose face was covered. She was sort of whimpering and quietly screaming. It was...it felt all wrong. It sounded so wrong.

“They stopped the slow beating of the drum, thank goodness, and the red-head began to speak. She said, ‘let the Blood feast begin!’ or something like that and they ripped the bag off the girl. She was so young she couldn’t have been much older than us, maybe sixteen. All these tears were streaming down her face and you could see cuts and gashes and bruises all over her body. Then the red-head-”

“ _Elizabeth_ ,” Bubbles silently corrected in her head.

“-she began to rub her bare arms and say ‘I need replenishment.’ Then they untied the girl and told her to run as fast as she could. So she ran. She ran in the opposite direction to where I was hiding. They were grinning, like the whole thing was a game to them. It was like when hunters chase after game they do not need. It was awful.

“I knew the girl wouldn’t survive the cold. So I was thinking of how I could help her when...when those things began to show their true selves. They began to writhe and hiss. They had long tongues that lolled in their heads and wide eyes that looked like that of a hawk gone mad and sharp teeth that looked like they belonged to a snake. I nearly screamed but I choked it back. They ran away suddenly, moving so fast they were like blurs. Alone in the snow I knew I had two options, run as fast as I could back home or run to find that girl. For better or for worse, I went to try and save the girl.

“I ran around where the vampires had been and instead went in the direction where the girl had ran. I saw her footsteps in the snow and I followed them. Eventually I spotted her gasping by one of the trees. I called out to her and she gave me this look of a terrified animal. I said, ‘I’m not going to hurt you! Come with me, back to my home!’ The girl stared at me for a little while. She was so pretty Bubbles, I know that must sound strange, but she was. She had this long brown hair that went down her back and these big blue eyes. Her skin was tan and you could tell she wasn’t from these parts. She was probably some poor girl tricked into going into that horrible house for work or tutoring. It was disgraceful. She stared at me like she didn’t know if I was real or not, but then she stepped towards me and held out her hand, like a small child, to me.

“And that’s when they came.”

Buttercup gulped and her voice became hoarse. “They must have been hiding in the trees or something. They just dropped down out of nowhere. Seduca, she grinned at me like this was a great joke. The blonde was laughing and drooling like a lunatic, glaring and gesturing at the terrified blue-eyed girl. Then the red-head, she grabbed the girl, pulled back her head and ripped out her throat with her teeth! Blood sprayed everywhere, all over them, and they loved it. Oh...it was horrible...horrible. They began to lie in the blood that was gushing out in the snow, allowing the girl to fall to the ground. She was still alive Bubbles! She was still alive. Her body was in shock and was shaking.”

 Buttercup stopped looking as if she were about to vomit and instead her face went still and cold- like a dead person’s, “I couldn’t handle what had happened but it got even worse. The red-head she began to change. Her skin began to look more ethereal and she looked even more beautiful, as if she had stolen to vitality and beauty of that girl for herself.  

“Seduca was watching me the whole time. She said her name, introducing herself like we were at a party or something, and said that she liked feisty little girls like me. I ran then. I just turned and ran. I heard them chasing after me. They kept saying ‘one little bite, that’s all it takes.’ I would’ve been caught but then he,” she gestured to the large black wolf behind her, “he saved me. He jumped out of nowhere and I just know somehow that he wasn’t going to hurt me. I jumped on his back and he took me to this place. And here I have been since. The pale wolf by you only appeared to me a few days ago.  I kill some animals for food and clothing. I have to. I’ve tried sneaking down to the castle in the day but the blonde vampire guards it. For some reason the wolves won’t go into its shadow or anywhere near the actual stones. I wanted to live alone, I suppose I got my wish didn’t I?”

She smiled ruefully, no pleasure in her face.

“Have you seen Blossom since?”

“Not once.”

“Do you think she’s...?”

“One of them?” finished Buttercup, “I don’t know.”

“There are people in the basement,” said Bubbles, “all men. They kill the girls early on. We have to fight them Buttercup. We have to save those people.”

“Of course we do,” said Buttercup, “now that I know these wolves are more than friendly but can kill those things we definitely will. Before I was alone, but now I have you and the wolves. We will take the Castle Čachtice and we will find Blossom. No matter what.”

“No matter what,” confirmed Bubbles.

Both girls knew that they were probably walking straight to their deaths but they didn’t care. They couldn’t spend the rest of their lives in a cave being haunted by monsters, not knowing what had happened to Blossom. They would go fighting and die together as sisters.

 VI

The morning sky was red and pink; they were Blossom’s colours.  
  
Bubbles watched them with large blue eyes. How long she had wanted to know what had happened to her dear sisters? And now she knew, but she wasn’t sure if the truth was worse than the not knowing.  
  
Buttercup had lent her some clothes. They were thick smelly animal skins that had to be tied around her body with coarse, thick string. However, she did not complain. She was too grateful to be warm.  
  
Something large settled down beside her; it was the pale, blue eyed wolf.  
  
“Buttercup and I should name you,” she said fondly, digging her cold hands in its warm fur. 

  
After a moment she placed a kiss on its snout. It blinked up at her stupidly, making her laugh again.  
  
“He suits being your pet,” said the hoarse voice of her sister.  
  
Bubbles turned to see Buttercup and the dark wolf standing at the mouth of their cave. Buttercup was tightening the strap around her waist which held her short sword.  
  
“Where did you get your weapons from?” she asked.  
  
“I found the dagger I put in my boot near the castle. I reckon it was an old kitchen knife that maybe one of the victims was smart enough to take. The sword was bought to me by him,” she smiled at her black wolf and patted his neck roughly. His tongue lolled out of his snout, but unlike Bubbles wolf, he seemed less friendly and more volatile, panting as if ready and willing to get into a fight.  
  
“He suits being your pet,” Bubbles said to Buttercup, a smile shared between them. “Let’s just hope the red-eyed wolf appears today.”  
  
Climbing onto a wolf each they made their way down to the castle.  
  
As soon as they reached it shadow, the wolves halted, unable or unwilling to go any further. The girls slid off and walked alone. Buttercup handed Bubbles the kitchen knife.   
  
“I would give you my sword,” she said, “but I doubt you could wield it as well as I can so I shall have to protect you when that dagger isn’t enough.”  
  
Bubbles nodded. It was no secret that her sister was the stronger one out of the two of them.  
  
“There is another way inside.” She said, “when I was captive in the basement, there was a small window which let in some light. You could not see outside, for there was too much snow covering it.”  
  
“Then we shall have to dig our way in.”  
  
Remembering the rough layout of the castle, Bubbles led her sister around the side of the castle. The snow by the castle wall here was less thick and white, but more clear and icy.   
  
“It’s warmer here,” said Bubbles, “because this is where all the humans are being stored. It must be melting the snow slightly.”  
  
They began to scoop the snow away with their hands and after around fifteen minutes they could hear the dim cries and groans of human suffering. They shivered, feeling the bile rising in their throats, but continued.  
Finally, after making what was a small hole they both had to climb into, the small grated window began to appear.  Buttercup peeked through it.  
  
“Can you see that awful maid of theirs Buttercup?”  
  
“No, I think it’s safe to start our rescue.” Immediately Buttercup began to kick in the window using both of her heavily booted feet.  
  
The cries inside became quieter; clearly they had caught the people’s attention.  
  
Soon, Buttercup slid through the window. Bubbles followed shortly after.  
  
The stench of bodily fluids hit them powerfully, though the strong, cold wind blew in through the window, breathing air and hope and light into the dungeon.  
  
The locks on the cages were rusted and stiff, but the girls were able to smash through the rust, tearing apart the weakened metal.  
  
Then they began to lead the men towards the window.  
  
“Go for the sane looking ones first,” Buttercup whispered to Bubbles, who nodded.  It was clear to Bubbles from her own short time in captivity that some of the people had gone mad in the cages, but now all the people were silent, watching the girls with large and careful eyes.  
  
“Thank you!” gasped one thin man as he stepped out of his cage, “thank you so much!”  
  
“There are some wolves outside,” Buttercup announced, loud enough for everyone to hear but quiet enough to not rouse the vampires, “go stand by the wolves, do not be afraid of them.”  
  
A number of people in the cages were already dead. Their bodies, thin and sad, lay crumpled on the cold floor of their traps. Bubbles felt a few hot tears fall down her cheeks; if only they had done this earlier then these people wouldn’t have had to have died such long, painful and horrible deaths. If they did manage to destroy the vampires, they would need to bury these people, it was the least they could do.  
  
In all there were about twenty living men, all of whom made it out into the cold snow. As instructed, they all huddled around the large, fluffy wolves.  
  
“Alright,” Buttercup started, “darkness will arrive soon, and we need to get you guys away from the vampires. Who of you is strong enough to get to the village?”  
  
Two boys, one blond and one a brunet, raised their hands nervously. They were dirty and thin, but being younger had held on longer than many of the old men.

“Excellent, the black wolf, he will lead you down into the village.” She ruffled the wolf’s head fondly, and he whined a little, clearly not happy to leave her. “You need to go get help. If we get the villagers up here then we have a better chance of getting those weakest among us down to where there are doctors and food.”  
  
Bubbles blinked, knowing that there was no food or medication in the village, but she did not want to interrupt her sister, or take away what little hope these people had left.  
  
As the boys climbed onto the large wolf and began to walk down towards the village, Buttercup returned her gaze to the others. “Now you will all go with the white, blue eyed wolf. He will lead you to a great cave. There are runes outside that cave which will keep you safe. You can go out in the day to forage, but, hopefully, you will not need to stay there long.” She paused momentarily, “our sister,” she begin slowly, “was a servant at this house. Her name was Blossom. Has anyone seen her?”  
  
Most of the survivors were too fraught and exhausted to even answer, but man, slender and pale eyed muttered, “they took her.”  


Bubbles felt fear grip her heart, she had hoped that Ms. Scara had just been trying to frighten her. The image of her sister with a binding of thorns around her eyes flashed into her mind, “The vampires? Where did they take her?”  
  
The man shook his head, “all I know is that the servant, Ms. Scara, took her out of the cage and out of the kitchen. She was shouting and fighting. I don’t know what happened to her. But, I don’t think she was killed.”  
  
“Why not?” Hope dared bloom in the girls faces.  
  
“Because normally when the vampires return their faces are full and even more beautiful. This time we heard angry shrieks and Ms. Scara had to take out some of us to feed the   
vampires for the night. So they couldn’t have gotten your sister.”  
  
The sisters thanked the man who then walked away with the rest of the survivors and the blue eyed wolf. Buttercup then turned to look at Bubbles, “we need to find her! Somehow we need to find Blossom.”  
  
But then, as if hearing their complaints, out of the black woods came another wolf. It was larger than its brothers, and fierce looking, with red eyes and long, shaggy fur.

“That’s the wolf,” Bubbles said to her sister, “the one who tore the head of Seduca.”

“He’s a monster,” Buttercup whispered back before grinning, “I’m glad he’s on our side.”

 

The large wolf passed by the pale one, them huffing at each other for a moment. The men trailing after the white wolf watched this display dispassionately, they were too ill and tired to be scared of this new wolf’s great size and frightening image.

 

The large wolf met the sisters. Not as friendly as the other two wolves, it watched them closely instead of licking them. Neither girl risked stroking it.

Instead, the wolf turned its eyes to the castle, and the girls followed its gaze.

Bubbles looked at the red-eyed wolf who seemed completely focused on a certain window in the middle of the tower.

“Blossom must be in there,” said Bubbles, “it must be why he’s staring. I bet he’s her wolf.”

Buttercup turned to her, “we have one each?”

“Don’t you think so? It cannot be a coincidence. They protect us, and each shares the same eye colour as us. They must be our guardians. Sent by god perhaps.”

“We have to go in,” said Buttercup, her fists clenching, looking back at the castle.

Bubbles gulped. She remembered the dark, cold hallways, the paintings of sinister men and women, of Elizabeth Morebucks admiring her looks in the mirror as snowflakes blew around her. She jolted from her thoughts when a rough hand held her own. She turned to see her sister’s green eyes looking at her fiercely.

“Don’t be a baby,” commanded Buttercup, reminding Bubbles of their younger days where she had often been ridiculed by Buttercup for not being strong enough. “We have to go back in there,” continued Buttercup, “for the sake of Blossom.”

“I know!” Bubbles pulled her hand away in frustration but immediately regreted the loss of support and warmth. She forced the image of Blossom back to the forefront of her mind; Blossom’s large eyes and her long, red hair. She was the eldest of the trio, and the prettiest and the smartest. She needed to be saved. Who knew what those monsters had done to her? Plus, Bubbles had only been in Castle Čachtice for a day; Blossom had been there for months.

There was a long, melancholy howl in the distance. The survivors and the blue-eyed wolf had reached their destination. The red-eyed wolf whined at the Castle.

“You can’t come in with us, can you?” asked Bubbles, stroking its long coarse fur. The wolf hung his head.

“Don’t be ashamed,” said Buttercup, “we can do this. We’ll see you soon wolf.”

The girls finally moved. The climbed into the stinking pit of the basement. The cages lay torn and ugly, with only the dead inside. It stank. Had it not been winter the place would have been awash with flies.

Bubbles had her knife close to her chest, while Buttercup held out her sword. They moved cautiously through the human filth until they reached the door.

Opening it, they stepped out into the foyer. It looked the same as it had when Bubbles had first arrived, pristine but dark.

“Red eyes was looking to the middle of the castle,” whispered Buttercup, “is there anywhere that seemed strange to you when you were here?”

Bubbles nodded, “yes, there were these rooms. They looked like they belonged to children many years ago. Scara was furious when she caught me in them.”

Buttercup looked pleased, “can you remember where they are?”

Bubbles thought for a moment before nodding, “follow me,” she suggested, hoping her voice didn’t shake too much. She didn’t want to go first, with every step they took she was worried that a vampire would leap out of the shadows. But she had to go first, because she knew where to go. It couldn’t just be Buttercup taking all the risks.

They climbed the stairs steadily until they reached the second floor. After a moment’s though Bubbles turned right and they began to head towards the West Wing. “It’s a blue door,” she whispered quietly.

The house was silent but for the flickering of the flames. Even the loud wind outside was silenced by the thick walls. The second floor was still clean from Bubbles previous efforts from her time as a maid, but the area was notably in more disrepair compared to the rest of the castle.

They reached the blue door in no time at all. Bubbles opened it cautiously, halting now and then whenever it was at risk of creaking loudly. Unlike the first time, there was no gust of dust. Instead, the room was reasonably tidy. The toys had stayed put away, the beds had remained set up. The only thing that had been replaced were the state of the heavy curtains, which were once more shut up.

Bubbles closed the door behind them carefully as Buttercup began to scour the room for clues.

“What is this?” she asked, “who stayed here?”

“I don’t know,” muttered Bubbles before turning to Buttercup and asking, “what if she’s one of them?”

Buttercup froze, “what do you mean?”

“You said that you saw Blossom, standing the snow, with no footprints around her,” Bubbles continued. She was breathing quickly, stressed about her sister’s reaction as well as bringing up thoughts that had plagued her since Buttercup’s confession, “What if she’s now a vampire too?”

Buttercup whirled around to face her sister, “then she would have been a monster like the ones here. She would have killed me, and papa and you also. I was dreaming, that’s all. I felt guilt about abandoning her here. Now help me look.”

Bubbles didn’t feel satisfied, but she didn’t want to push it further. Walking passed the beds she picked up the picture of the triplets and popped them into her fur outfit. She then continued to the curtains where she ripped the open. The late morning sun burned into the room, lighting it up.

There was an angry hiss.

The girls leapt and jumped together, back to back, with their weapons out and ready.

The room was round, so there were no corners to hide in. Due to Bubbles’ efforts from a few days ago, the room was also quite clear and tidy.

Where had the hiss come from?

It was then that, slowly, Buttercup looked up.

She gasped.

Bubbles followed her lead. Immediately her teeth clenched together.

Up on the ceiling was Blossom. She was tied up in many ropes. Her skin was deathly pale. She writhed in pain from the sunlight, that seemed to be burning her.

Without thinking, Bubbles immediately closed one of the curtains, engulfing Blossom back into shadow.

“Well there’s your answer Bubbles!” spat out Buttercup, her voice thick with emotion. Bubbles couldn’t look at her, but if she had, she would have seen that Buttercup’s eyes were full of tears, just as her own were.

The thing that had once been their sister hissed again and thrashed in her confinement.

Bubbles felt sick. Had Blossom been in here before, the same time she had? When she had been tidying up, her dead sister had hung from the ceiling, watching her?

“There has to be a way of saving her,” wept Bubbles, “of lifting the vampire curse. There has to be…”

“Have you ever heard of any?” Buttercup yelled, not caring about waking up any vampires, “’cause I haven’t!”

Outside there was a mighty howl. It was the red-eyed wolf. Buttercup ran to the window not covered by the curtain and looked out. The wolf seemed keen to get as close to the castle as possible. It was coming up to midday, and the shadow of the castle was shrinking.

Bubbles watched Blossom as she began to renew her efforts against the ropes, grunting and moaning.

“We need to get her down,” she decided. She ran to the children’s toy box, using them to help buoy her up the bookcase. Standing on her tip toes she began to swipe at the lowest rope connected to a wall chandelier.

“What are you doing?” hissed Buttercup, having turned away from the window.

Outside, Red-eyes howled again.

“Following my instincts,” panted Buttercup, “she didn’t attack us that night, when she was clearly no longer human. If she was evil, they wouldn’t have tied her up and kept her weak like this.”

Buttercup seemed torn for a moment, but soon joined her sister. She was slightly taller and had a larger weapon and so reached the rope better. After a few moment’s it frayed enough the snap under Blossom’s weight.

The ropes untangled, falling down uselessly. Blossom dropped for a moment, before suddenly righting herself and slowly drifting to the ground as soft as the dust molecules around her. Her hair fanned out, long and red, catching the light of the sun. Her neck exposed itself, dark, purple bruises littered one side of it. It made Buttercup wince; it felt like a damnation.

Her sisters climbed down from the bookcase and stood staring at her back. Where Blossom had once been tanned, kissed by the sun, she was now as pale as the snow.

Slowly, she turned and faced her sisters.

She gave them a small and cautious smile, but neither of the living girls could return it due to being so stressed and frightened.

Instead, she walked towards them.

The girls held their breaths, as she touched each of them on the face. Her hands were cold like ice, but the touch was gentle.

With her intentions of their well-being clear, she then moved passed them both and opened the bedroom door.

The girls followed the eldest sister silently as she walked through the hallway and down the stairs, as silent as a ghost. It was only as they reached the landing that a Ms. Scara suddenly came into view. She stood in front of the main door, behind which you could hear the red-eyed wolf sniffing and growling and scratching, with her arms folded and her face pinched.

“So, found your sister, have you?” she sneered at Blossom, who stood ethereal but deadly, “a monster! A dead one at that!”

“Shut your mouth!” cried Buttercup, “she’s nothing like you or that vicious creature Morbucks!”

“She killed and ate many of those down in the basement,” said Scara, still smirking.

“Lies,” whispered Bubbles.

Scara’s smirk slowly slipped away, “you little foul witch,” she hissed at Bubbles, “I can’t wait to gobble you up. I’ll scalp you and keep your hair as a keep-sake.”

“That’s enough!” roared Buttercup, running towards Scara with frightening speed, her sword out and glinting murderously in the candlelight.

Letting out a hiss, Scara arched her back like a cat, her hands out and clawed. The pair clashed viciously, as Blossom continued her serene walk to the front door.

Bubbles, standing on the side-lines feeling almost like a ghost, watched as her sister put her hand on the front door’s handle.

Scara, seeing this, momentarily ignored Buttercup and her sword to cry, “you cannot do anything, we cut out your tongue!”

Her lapse in attention cost her, for as she finished her statement, Buttercup swung her heavy sword and sliced off Ms. Scara’s head.

Bubbles yelped and closed her eyes as she felt the cold spatter of thickened vampiric blood smashed against her face.

She slowly opened her eyes. Buttercup was panting over the bloodied and headless body of Ms. Scara, but she was looking to the front door. Bubbles followed her gaze and saw the light of day blaring through the front door, shining directly on to Blossom.

“Blossom,” she muttered, a frown marring her pretty face, “Blossom, no, no! You can’t! The sun!”

Before Blossom, who was starting to smoke and burn in the light, stood the large red-eyed wolf. It loomed over their sister, watching her with too intelligent eyes.

Unseen by the sisters, Blossom smiled at it and gestured with her hand for it to come inside.

Its red tongue lolling out, the wolf obliged. It walked into the foyer and after a moment of sniffing the air, turned and attacked Blossom.

It gripped her in its jaws, tearing into the already burned and damaged skin. She didn’t scream or cry out, though her eyes shut with seeming inevitability.

The girls both screamed in rage, running towards the wolf. Vampire or not, Blossom was their sister and she was good! She hung like a doll in the wolf’s mouth, and before the girls could begin to beat it, a bright white light burst out of it.

The girls were hurled backwards by the forced of magic emanating out of the wolf.

A loud noise, like intense wind, began to blow around them, blurring their vision and affecting their hearing. They both gripped down on the ground, terrified of being thrown further by the din of magical noise.

It was so over whelming that it took Bubbles a while to notice something; the air was warm. For the first time in years, she felt warm. Truly warm; down to her bones.

It was a familiar feeling…it was…

Her blue eyes burst open with the realisation. It was the feeling of summer.

The girls had not realised, being at the very forefront of the hit, but a magical tsunami hit the land. Bursting out of the castle, in engulfed the forest and the hill, reaching to the top of the Little Carpathians, and hitting the lowlands, rushing through the village and all who lived there.

The magic slowly calmed down, dispersing into smaller particles until the atmosphere reorganised itself.

Buttercup stood up, her arms shaking. At the open front door was a rather snobbish looking boy with red-hair and red-eyes. His hair was wild and too long, and his clothes, whilst very well made, looked old and too small. In his arms, was Blossom.

As Buttercup ran to her sister, Bubbles was staring beyond the boy out into the wilderness around them. Outside, she could hear actual bird song. There was grass on the ground, and the sky looked a deep, forever blue. Her eyes welled with tears once more.

How had this come to be?

“She’s alive,” whispered Buttercup. Blossom’s natural skin tone was back, and she was breathing normally.

“She’s like me now,” said the boy.

Buttercup gave him a curious and distrusting look, “and what are you?”

“A werewolf,” he responded, “it’s always the same with us Morbucks, you’re a wolf, or a vampire. The wolf bite overrode the vampire’s kiss.”

He lifted Blossom slightly so her neck could be seen; the dark purple bruise on her neck was gone, but Buttercup hazarded a guess that a large bite mark would now exist beneath her sister’s clothes were the wolf had gripped her.

“How come you didn’t change back to human before?” she asked.

“We were cursed,” he shrugged, as if this sort of thing was perfectly normal. Suddenly he looked down at Blossom, his face changing from a slight sneer to a look of genuine concern. Blossom shifted in his arms before slowly opening her eyes.

He smiled at her softly. Buttercup watched them both and scoffed before walking away.

Outside, the world had woken up. Everything was warm and beautiful.

It really had been a curse on the land.

“It’s amazing,” said Bubbles, joining her, “everything might get better now.”

“Not completely,” answered Buttercup, “we still have another enemy.”

She turned and looked up at the Castle Catciche.

“We still have Elizabeth Morbucks hiding in the shadows up there. If she could defeat the wolf boys and ruin this whole land once, she can do it again. It’s not over yet.”

VII

When the snow was still heavy on the ground, the villagers first witnessed a large, black shadow moving closer to the village. As it came through the mist, the shadow revealed itself to be a mighty black wolf with shinning green eyes.

For many it was the last straw. They had survived years of hardship; their farms failed, their crops destroyed, the animals vanished, cut off from the outside world, family and friends disappeared over night, their children stolen away by the Castle.

To now be finished off by this Fenrir seemed a fittingly bleak ending to their suffering. For death to not even be the relatively painless drifting off of starvation but instead the pain of being torn apart by a monster.

Many had gripped their rosaries, chipped and worn, an appropriate representation of their belief in a benevolent god but a lack of any other hope. The giant dog was panting hard, a dark red tongue lolling from its jaws. It had run long and hard to reach the village.

But then, one woman cried out in a hoarse voice, “look, children!”

By the large wolf’s padding paws were two brothers, Mitch and Mike. The boys were starved, thin and bare. But their eyes were resilient.

Villagers, those who were strong enough to walk, spilled out of their homes. The Professor was one of them. The cry of children heralded the possibility of his three girls, all long lost.

A mother fell to her knees, shocked to see her two sons. The brothers would have run to their mother in normal circumstances, but everyone was too weak for such shows. Instead they bore through the thick and freezing snow until, at last, they reached their sole surviving parent. Falling into each other’s arms, all three wept for some time.

The large wolf, knowing that its size was intimidating, lay on the ground, its paws tucked under its chest. It watched the displays of affection with curiosity and not a little envy. Its tail flicked left to right incessantly, a sign of it not being able to stay completely still.

In the distance, high up in the Little Carpathians, there was a long low howl. The black wolf’s ears pricked up and its tail stopped tick-tocking momentarily, before it began its movement again. The howl had frozen the villagers, who had long feared wolves, even before the Long Winter.

Now a few brave souls stepped towards this large, hulking creature of claws and fangs. It was no ordinary wolf. It was too large and its eyes were too clever. This creature was bewitched.

“What devilry is this?” whispered a woman, grabbing the crucifix that hung against her chest.

“It bought us home,” said Mitch, “it saved us. That and those girls.”

“What girls?” asked the Professor, “and from what were you saved?”

“The castle is haunted,” answered Mike, “by evil creatures they-”

But his sentence was never completed as suddenly there was a huge white explosion from the castle. A great sea of magic crashed throughout the land, making the villagers fall to the ground from its force.

The thick snow was torn up from the land and cast high into the air where it dissipated. Flowers and grass sprung from the earth and burst into bloom. The air became warm and gentle. Smells of fruit and flowers enriched the atmosphere and finally just as the magic cooled down, the sounds of running rivers and of birdsong were heard.

“The curse,” they began to whisper, “it’s lifted!”

The people couldn’t cheer, too weak from their suffering, but instead they were dazed. The sun, bright and yellow and fat, blazed against their eyes. The amount of colour and smell was over whelming for the senses. People began to weep, feeling the steady heat sinking into their bones.

It was all over; the horrors were over.  


Such was the shock that it took a few moments for people to notice that the wolf was no longer there. Instead, in its place stood a boy dressed in fine but old clothes that were too small on his body. His hair was wild and unkempt, his eyes a fierce green and he had a haughty look about him. His hands twitched with barely controlled energy.

Before them stood a Prince.

“The curse is over,” he said, his voice raspy from misuse and due to him being on the verge of adolescence, “the girls must have broken it.”

“What girls?” cried the Professor again, “one of ours? Girls from our village?”

“The triplets,” responded the boy, turning and fixing the Professor with a steady stare, “the red-head, the dark-haired, and the blonde one.”

The Professor choked back a sob, “m-my girls,” he stammered, “fit such a description.”

The boy regarded his for a moment before continuing, “they will need help. More survivors are up in the hill sides, but the girls will need help to vanquish the final evil. I’m going to go now to help them. We will win, so get yourselves strong and ready to welcome them back home. I will return with your daughters.”

“And what of the rest of us?” asked a woman with thin brown hair, “how many of us will get our children back?”

The boy seemed, for the first time, to falter in his confidence. “Many have died,” he said after a prolonged silence, “it’s been many years. But I shall help avenge you all.”

The woman closed her eyes and turned away. Her daughter had gone up to the castle over a year ago, there was no chance of her still being alive. She walked away from the crowds, the beauty of the land around her meaning nothing. A few others followed her, the inevitable loss of their children too much to bear and the promise of vengeance being hollow after so much time of desperate hope.

“But who are you?” said a man, falling forwards as the black-haired prince turned to leave.

“I’m one of your long-lost princes,” the boy said, “I am Prince Butch, one of three.”

He gave them a small bow, before running back up the hill with unnatural speed and strength, as if the energy he could just about hold in during his talks with the villagers was finally released.

The Professor felt his thin legs give way from under him. The earth he fell to was soft, the green blades of grass tickling his rough skin. His vision blurred with tears. Was it possible that his girls were still alive?

 

Up in the hills, a blue-eyed boy stared out of a cave onto the beautiful kingdom before him. He turned to his awe-struck band of survivors.

“I need to leave,” he said, his nose stuffy and his voice younger than that of his brothers, “but help will come. The villagers will be here when they are strong enough. First I have to help defeat Elizabeth.”

A man, crouched on the floor as he was no longer able to move, lifted his emaciated arms to grip Boomer’s hands in his own.

“Good luck my sweet Prince,” he whispered, tears in his dark brown eyes. He must have been handsome once, before the hunger and the violence met upon him. Boomer felt his insides shift uncomfortably; this was all the fault of him and his brothers. They had not done their duty as Princes and their people had suffered for it.

He nodded at the man, his lips pressed together in a thin white line, before he headed out into the sunny, warm, Slovakian wilderness.

 

 

Back in the Castle, Buttercup and Bubbles made their way slowly up the dark, winding stairs. Prince Brick had left Blossom, still unconscious, on the warm grass outside of the castle doors.

“We could wait a while,” he had informed the girls earlier, “my brothers are coming. It should be us who defeat her.”

But Buttercup had refused. “No disrespect your majesty,” she’d answered with insincerity, “but I do not know you and you lost to her before. Besides, it’s my family and my village that suffered under her. We have as much right to defeat her as you and your brothers.”

She had then brushed passed him and gone upstairs, her sister, sweet and fair, giving him an apologetic smile before following after her dark-haired sister. Brick didn’t pitch a fit, like he would’ve back when he was younger. The last few years had been hard on the boys, and watching all the death and destruction that happened because of their weakness had humbled him. So instead he took one last look to the outside world and hoped his brothers would arrive soon, before walking up the stairs after the sisters.

 

“She was at the very top of the castle,” Bubbles whispered to her sister, “in one of the turrets. The roof was torn open and snow was coming in.”

They reached the uppermost landing. Down the left side was darkness. Down the right was a light blue light and snow piled on the floor.

“I’m guessing down that way then,” muttered Buttercup.

They walked slowly, closer and closer into the darkness. When they reached the snow, they looked up. A hole could be seen, far up, in the roof. The rot through the roof must have seeped through the floor and the ceiling of the hallway. Had winter continued, it would have carried on all the way down to the bottom floor. As it was, through the hole they could see the sky was a deep summer blue. Two birds flew across quickly, twittering as they did. Even the snow on the floor, they could now see, was beginning to melt.

To the end of the corridor was a door. It was painted a deep vermillion and was plainer than most of the doors throughout the castle. They turned the knob, behind the door was another set of stairs, metal and winding and creaking.

There was no choice but to go up in a line, as it was so narrow. Buttercup went first, Bubbles next and Brick at the rear.

 

Meanwhile, outside, Butch met his brother Boomer outside of the castle. A red-haired girl lay on its doorstep.

The boys looked at each other.

“Is she the one who had the blindfold of thorns across her eyes?” asked Boomer.

Butch nodded. She had been the one they couldn’t quite save. It had driven Brick over the edge. Another lost soul. One he had liked.

But here she was, alive and breathing and in the sun.

Brick sniffed her, “he turned her into one of us.”

“Better that than vampire,” said Boomer, “come on, they’re inside, I can smell them.”

The boys ran quickly, tracing the scent of Blossom’s sisters and their own brother up the winding stairs.

 

On entering Elizabeth’s room, Buttercup looked around carefully, including up on the ceiling. There was nothing, but the room had its shadows. A large bed with curtains around it and heavy quilts stood in one corner. Beside it was a vanity, rotted and filled with various perfumes and make up. The room, now that the cold hadn’t frozen it over, stank of decay.

A large free-standing mirror stood in the middle of the room, beyond it was a large messy hole.

Brick came in, sniffed and growled softly.

“Is she in here?” whispered Bubbles.

He nodded, “but I don’t know where,” he began to pace carefully around the room, focusing on the bed.  He walked slowly, like a predator.

The Utonium girls stood still and tense. Bubbles and Buttercup trained their eyes to the luxurious but worn bed. Underneath it, the shadow seemed thick and heavy.

Bubbles turned her eyes away resentfully, to talk to Brick, to tell him to look beneath the bed. He was stalking about by the mirror and it took her a moment to realise.

In the mirror, not only was the Prince and the room reflected, but there was another figure in it. One with deep red hair and white skin. And it was running towards them, getting larger and larger in the mirror.

“Prince Bri-!” she managed to scream before Elizabeth suddenly came out of the mirror hissing. Her face was a ghastly white, almost blue, tinged with death. Her fangs were large and curved and jutting out of elongated gums like a venomous snake’s.

An inhuman growl ripped its way out of Brick as the two tumbled together, her trying to bite his neck and him fiercely beating her with heavy blows.

At once, the door was opened and in flew the last two brothers.

Bubbles went to help, without even thinking, but Buttercup put her arm in front of her sister, causing Bubbles to look at her questioningly.

“Best we stay out of this sister,” warned Buttercup, “this is a battle between them.”

The three princes battered Elizabeth with thuggish brutality Bubbles would not have thought possible from the gentry. Elizabeth, alone and weakened from the sun and daylight, was smoking as well as being pummelled by the boys. She had no chance against them; their bloodlust, built upon from years of being hungry and desperate, trapped in the wilderness without being able to talk to a single soul, had animalised them. Bones snapped, pale skin burned in the sunlight, bites were taken from her upper arms and throat.

After a few horrible minutes the boys backed away, staring at the mess of their cousin. She was a bloodied mess and soon burst into flames. She was silent the entire time, dying in silence.

When she was gone, Bubbles let out a light sob.

It had all been too horrible.

The boys looked at her, each covered in blood and their fists red and blistered from the beating they’d just met out. They had the decency to at least look ashamed.

The handsome one, the blond, looked to say something, but Buttercup grabbed Bubbles arm and dragged her out of the room and down the stairs. Soon they were outside of the castle, back in the beautiful sunshine with their red-haired sister still asleep on the grass. Letting go of Bubbles, Buttercup allowed her sister to fall shakily to her knees before vomiting onto the grass.

“It’s over Bubbles,” Buttercup breathed in deeply, “it’s all over.”

 VIII

 

 

**Then**

Once upon a time there lived three Princes.

They were brothers and together they lived in a tall, dark castle made of heavy grey stone. The Castle was situated between the Little Carpathians of Slovakia and a small village which they never visited.

The brothers had no friends and the only people they knew aside from one another were a host of servants who were mostly silent and served every whim of the Princes. The three brothers had a father, but he was rarely home.

The castle was always dark. The servants would light candles, but only in the a few rooms and corridors; the ones that people used the most. So the boys were raised in shadows. They had never gone to the village because they were taught that anyone who was not royalty was lesser. They never visited the wild woods to the back of their home, for Princes did not belong in nature. They belonged in a dark world of glistening jewels and shiny coins, of silken robes and milk baths, of silence apart from their own loud shouts, of creeping shadows and family secrets.

The Princes all slept in the same room, because even thought there were over two hundred rooms in their tall castle and though the boys had never been taught to share and often argued with one another, not one could bear the additional loneliness of sleeping alone.

By ascending order of age the boys were Brick, Butch and Boomer. They were triplets, born under a red moon and so by the curse of their blood destined every full moon to turn into large wolves. It was always the same; the day of the moon the boys would be bought down into a deep, cavernous basement. There they would grow increasingly irate as their blood began to boil, snapping and biting each other, fighting and hissing. Then, as the sun would set, they would begin to change. Howling in pain their bones would snap and their skin would break. Their bodies would stretch out. Their teeth fell out and new canines grew in. Fur sprouted from their pores. Their noses and mouths would join and form a snout. Nails popped off as black claws grew in their place.

The boys, unable to even argue now, would fight throughout the night. In the day, bloodied and exhausted, they would sleep curled up into one another.

On the fourth day, when the full moon was passed, the boys would be released.

Then the boys would continue with life as normal. Surrounded by silent staff stiffly giving them everything they wanted (not what they needed) and the boys only having one another for companions. Every day, when they thought the others were not looking, a boy would look out the window to the village and wonder if there was anyone out there who was like them; if there was anyone who could be their friend; if there was anyone who could ever love them.

 

 

One winter night, when the half moon was high and white in the sky and a thick coat of snow lay on the ground, they arrived.

 

 

The boys had been surprised when their cousin, Elizabeth Morbucks arrived with her Lady In Waiting Sedusa and their maid Ms Scara. They had been sceptical, never having met any of these women before, but the women produced a seal that bore the family crest. Further, they showed that they too were more than human; though the creature they favoured was more of a bat than a wolf.

At first the boys had enjoyed having the women in their home. A connection to the outside. Their first link with people other than themselves. Three women, one for each boy. Brick became attached to Elizabeth, following her around like a lost puppy, braiding her long red hair and reading to her when she was bored. Butch and Sedusa practiced sword fighting, developing a new style by combining traditional Slovakian swordplay with far-eastern fighting styles. He had respected her lithe figure, her intelligence and her brutality. Where his brothers acted older than they were in an attempt to impress the women, Boomer became more like a baby. He would hang about on Ms Scara’s dresses, getting underfoot as she attempted to tidy. He would sit on her lap and demand bed-time stories. His brothers would roll their eyes, lying in their own beds, complaining loudly but Boomer would stick his thumb in his mouth and watch Ms Scara reading with wide, blue eyes.

For boys who did not know love, they loved the three women quickly and deeply.

And so it hurt all the more when they were betrayed.

 

**Now**

“Are you all right?”

The brothers met the girls outside.

“Is it really over now?” asked Buttercup, a frown on her face.

“Truly,” answered Brick, he looked down at their red-haired sister still unconscious, “we can take her back with us to the village of Cachville.”

“We’ll take you all,” said Boomer quickly, smiling sweetly at Bubbles who returned it shyly.

Brick walked over to Blossom, getting down on one knee and taking her limp hand into his own.

“Will she recover?” asked Buttercup.

Brick stared at the Blossom, “I think so…” He leaned down, pressing a kiss to her still lips, instinct telling him what to do.

Her eyes fluttered open, pale pink to his deep red.

As he leaned back up, she slowly raised herself up onto her arms. She opened her mouth to speak, but her tongue was gone, so she could not.

“Blossom!” sobbed Bubbles, running and falling beside her sister before embracing her. The sisters hugged tightly, Bubbles almost on top of her sister. After all this time, having her sister back in her arms felt like a dream come true. Bubbles tightened her hold, she wasn’t used to good things happening anymore, and she felt certain that something was going to go wrong.

Buttercup watched the pair, gulping when Blossom’s eyes turned to stare at her. Bubbles had a right to hug her sister, but Buttercup was a traitor. She had left her sister in this terrible place. Had left her to the curse. Bubbles and Buttercup had gotten through this hell relatively well, but Blossom was now unable to speak and a part of this strange curse.

Instead she turned away from her sister’s gaze, turning to the black-haired prince who stood beside her.

“Is she like you now?”

The boy looked at her, his eyes as green as the summer grass. “She is. She took on the curse. She took on us. We’re linked now.”

Buttercup felt her heart sinking, “will she have to stay with you?”

“No,” barked an authoritarian voice. The black-haired pair turned to see Brick standing with Blossom at his side. The pair were holding hands. Bubbles stood a little further back, wiping tears from her eyes. The blond prince, Boomer, handed her a handkerchief with a small smile.

“No more of that,” Brick continued, “we will take you to the village as promised. We can help your sister once a month, when the time of the wolf arrives. But you are free to live your lives however you want.”

“And what about you guys?” asked Bubbles.

The brothers looked to Brick, who frowned, “after we take you home, we should return to the castle. We failed you as a people. We don’t deserve anything more than to stay alone, as our father originally intended.”

 

**Then**

Once upon a time there were three princes. They were brothers and they were so lonely and so starved for love, that they allowed three women they did not know into their home and hearts.

The full moon came around. This time it was special; the moon was a deep amber; a Hunter’s Moon.

The boys were hurried into the basement by Elizabeth and Sedusa. There were kisses and cuddles as the women swore the allow the boys out during the day. For the first time, the boys would only be locked up for the nights.

The servants, standing silently in the shadows, scowled and cast glances at one another. Boomer noticed, but said nothing. The opinions of servants did not matter to a Prince.

The boys climbed down into the dark shadowy basement.

The door was shut and locked.

They could hear the giggling of the women outside.

Normally, the brothers would fight. But that night they stood silently, side by side, looking to where they had seen the door. Now, it was so dark they couldn’t see anything.

Perhaps it was then that they had first sensed something was wrong. That niggling feeling each had had at the back of their mind that something was not right about the women, that there was a darkness there they didn’t understand, that they were allowing their loneliness to override their common sense.

The giggling died away.

For a time all the boys could hear was the soft breaths of their brothers.

And then it started, the harsh whisper of Ms Scara chanting outside the door. It was in a tongue they did not know but in their bones they knew to fear.

The boys began to stir, unnerved.

What was she doing? They asked one another in frightened whispers. What was happening? Had they been tricked?

The darkness became aliving creature in its own right then, oppressive and heavy. They couldn’t see.

The boys began to inch closer together. Boomer was shaking by the time he felt the brush of Brick’s arm next to his.

Brick felt it.

He had told his brother not to worry, even as he himself felt more afraid than he ever had before.

But then it started. The boys yelped in pain, each falling to the ground as their bodies began to twist and contort, pieces of their humanity falling off and a wolf growing in their place.

Outside, mist began to drift over the amber Hunter’s Moon as the boys, now wolf cubs, howled from their pit.

They remained in the basement as always. But unlike usual they did not fight. Even in their wolf forms they were uneasy. And strangely self-aware. Instead the boys paced, walking in circles around the room.

Slowly, they began to realise that the night wasn’t ending. They defecated in a corner of the room each, and the smell was beginning to become over-powering. They were becoming hungry too, the bellies rumbling.

How was this happening?

Why was it not yet morning?

Where was the sun?

The boys began to howl, calling and calling, each remembering their favourite woman. Where was the beautiful Elizabeth? Where was the feisty Sedusa? Where was motherly Ms. Scara?

The howling began plaintive and sad, but soon became angry and crazed. The boys were starving. They could smell blood above them – what was happening in the Castle?

They began to hurl themselves against the wooden door. Smashing into it with snarls of frustration.

Boomer, a white wolf, soon became too weak. He collapsed on the ground. His stomach felt caved in. Cramps wracked his body. His brother, Butch, watching with hungry eyes, shaking with adrenaline, suddenly went after Boomer. He bit him on the leg and Boomer knew that his brother meant to kill him; that his brother was so hungry he had decided to eat him.

Boomer closed his eyes and whined, waiting for a miserable death. Perhaps it would be the right thing, to allow his brother, who was so much stronger, to live a little while longer? Boomer had been as spiteful and selfish as his brothers all his life, but in their time in the basement, realising that the person he thought loved him had not, Boomer had recognised that his brothers were all he’d ever had.

Suddenly, Butch was thrown. Brick, a ruddy-red wolf with shaggy fur, was standing over his body, snapping his jaws at Butch. Boomer looked at his dark brother, who’s eyes were wide with terror. They locked eyes. Boomer understood. Butch was sorry, truly sorry, frightened of himself.

Boomer looked down at his bleeding leg for a while before lapping up the blood with dizzy relief; as well as having no food they had no water, and the blood was the only liquid they had other than pee.

The final straw for Brick was this moment. With supernatural strength he flung himself once more at the door, smashing it open.

Splinters flew, damaging his eyes, but he crawled out of the basement into the shadowy castle.

His brothers, looking thin and shocked followed behind him.

The castle looked the same, but it wasn’t anymore. It was far, far colder. There was the scent of blood and flesh. Human blood and flesh. They could not see any servants.

A hiss alerted them to Elizabeth Morbucks standing at the top of the grand staircase. She wore her hair out, her red curls drifting down her back. Her dress was of the deepest green, almost black. She had sneered at the boys. Brick stepped back, his young heart stung.

It is a hard thing to be betrayed and heart-broken when one isn’t even thirteen years old yet.

 She told them that the Castle belonged to Royalty, specifically the proud house of Morbucks, and their food. She told them that dogs were not truly Morbucks and did not belong indoors.

The bottom of her long dress rippled unnaturally in an ugly manner, and out from under scrambled Ms Scara, her face contorted into a hideous grin. Her hair was white and wild. Her pupils sharp like a goat’s. Her teeth were sharp. She put out her hand and said something in the strange language again.

The wolves were hurled outside. Darkness enveloped them. Everything was cold and icy.

When they came too, they found themselves outside in the wilderness.

They tried to come home, but could not.

They could not even stand in the shadow of their castle.

It was not theirs anymore.

The wolves howled.

 

 

**Now**

It was quiet for a moment after Brick’s announcement. But then, a hand held his own.

He looked and saw Blossom watching him. Her face was soft and creamy. Her eyes big and forgiving. Her lips, which he knew were warm, were as red as winter berries.

“Sorry your Majesty,” sighed Buttercup with her usual lack of deference for their royal station, “but you shouldn’t be alone. Not anymore. You’re coming with us to the village. Stay with us for a while.”

“Meet our father,” said Bubbles, following her sister’s lead and holding the hand of Boomer.

“I turned my back on someone I loved before,” Buttercup bit out, looking at the ground. Her cheeks were red with shame, “I hurt someone I loved.”

Behind her, Butch winced and turned away.

“I won’t do that again,” she announced, “you Princes helped me and my sisters. We are the same age, I think. We’re triplets like you. We were destined to stay together.” She finally had the strength to look up, facing them all, “do not lock yourselves away again.”

A beat.

“I won’t,” said Butch, his voice hoarse from lack of use, respect in his eyes for the dark-haired sister.

“I won’t,” whispered Boomer, looking at his hand clasped with Bubbles’.

Brick turned to look at the girl who would someday be the love of his life, “I won’t lock myself away again.”

 

**And Then**

It was the middle of Summer. The night was heavy with warmth and the sounds of humming insects.

Scented fruit hung heavy from every tree and bush.

Out in the mountains, away from their village for the night, were four wolves, their fur decorated with peaseblossoms and roses. The girls braiding the flowers in their furs were two sisters, the third now a wolf for the night.

Their laughter rose into the air.

 


End file.
